ProRaw vs. JPEG: The Hidden Setting Every iPhone Photographer Needs | All Things Mobile

your iPhone photos suck? There's a lot of hype around iPhone cameras, and there might be one feature that you're not using right. Your iPhone is actually hiding a professional grade camera inside it, but by default, Apple has turned it off. Most people think they're getting the best possible photo when they hit that shutter button, but they're actually throwing away 60% of the data their sensor just captured. Today we're unlocking Apple ProRAW. And I'm going to show you why it's the difference between a nice phone pic and a shot that looks like it came off a professional camera. This is all things mobile. So let's just get right into it. This is my main tip. There's something I do in the settings every single time I get a new iPhone. As soon as I pull it out of the box. Okay, so what you're going to do is go to settings, then go to camera, then go down to formats. From there you're going to want to make sure you have pro raw and resolution control turned on. And then you go into pro raw format. And then I want you to hit Jpeg XL lossy. I'm telling you, Jpeg XL lossy is the option to choose here. Unless you're dead set and you have a specific reason to use another file format. Lossy is the way, and not just because it's the most fun one to say, let's break it down. raw photos are basically a digital version of a film negative meaning they're basically hold the most amount of information or data that you possibly can right now in an image file. So that means that you have the most amount of information or data in the highlights to bring those down or adjust them the way you want without clipping or the shadows, without crushing the blacks and being able to adjust their. as well as the most amount of information in the colors, which I personally think is the most important. And we'll get more into that in a little bit. So Apple's ProRAW is a computational raw. So that means your iPhone has already done some heavy lifting for you. It's stacked images to help you with noise and getting the exposure right. But it being a raw file type is really important if you want to take it into an editing software after you take it. And that's because, like I said, there's more information and data in the file type, which means when you pull it into an editing software, you can stretch and play with your image much more than you could if it was just a Jpeg. okay. So back to the colors. Just switching into Pro Raw changes your images from an 8 bit color depth to a 12 bit color depth. And that might not sound like a lot, but it is. 8 bit covers. 16 million colors. 12 bit color depth. Covers 68 billion colors. So think of 12 bit color depth kind of as a safety net. Have you ever taken a picture of a sunset and the sky looks chunky or has weird circular lines. Well that's band. It. But because we now have 68 billion colors to work with, the sky will look much more natural and have a beautiful gradient, smooth look like it should. I'm like I said, the extra bonus of shooting in Raw is exposure recovery. If you ever take a normal iPhone photo to dark and then you try to brighten it up, the shadows will look all grainy and muddy and, But now with Pro Raw, you can rescue photos that you shot to dark because there's more information in those shadows. Also, by shooting in Pro Raw, you unlock the bigger sensor size on your camera. On this iPhone 17 Pro, by turning on Pro Raw, it changes the resolution of the sensor from 24 megapixels to 48, literally doubles in size. This is detail. More pixels more information when you zoom in to your image. And this is very important. But color depth to me is still the king of pro raw. But by shooting pro you get both. So it's a no brainer. But like I said, editing is where you really see the power of shooting Pro Raw. I edit on Lightroom Mobile. That's the one I kind of recommend, but you can even just edit straight up in your photos app. So as you can see, when you move the highlights or shadow sliders, the phone isn't just stretching the image, it's reaching into that extra data we talked about. You'll notice you can push your ad its way further before the image starts to break than the normal Jpeg. It's a difference between coloring with a box of 8 crayons or a box of 64. But what's the catch? If this is so great, why wouldn't Apple just have this already defaulted? As soon as you turn your iPhone on for the first time. Well, there is a catch with more details. More color is more information. That means more, bigger files, which means your storage is filling up faster. This is the reason that most people don't shoot Pro Raw, and why Apple doesn't set it as a default setting. And we all know how much Apple charges for storage. For Pro Raw, lossless file sizes are approximately 75MB at 48 megapixels and 25MB at 12 megapixels. For lossy, the file sizes are 20MB at 48 megapixels and only 11MB at 12 megapixels. Lossy is nearly a quarter of the size of lossless. And in all my editing and testing, I truly cannot tell the difference between the two files. The information and color is all there. I honestly can't think of a reason you'd rather shoot lossless than lossy. Now is a little side tip. While we're still in camera settings, let's just scroll down to composition. And I like to turn on all of these sliders. Now it's personal preference, but turn them on. I love to see the grid help me compose. I love having the level. Viewing outside. The frame is great too, in my opinion. As well as mirroring the front camera. All right, I hope you start seeing better photos coming out of your iPhone cameras. But remember, the best way to get better images is to shoot more. Experience in practice are more important than settings. Well, settings are important to good settings and practice. Make good photos. If you found this video helpful and you want to see more like it, consider liking the video and subscribing to the channel. If you have any other questions, comment them down below

and I'll do my best to answer them. Now go out and take some photos. Bye